Or Shovaly Plus

Or Shovaly is one of New Orleans' up-in-coming guitarists.  Or has over twenty years of experience playing guitar. He has roots in blues, rock, funk and world music.  He plays a dynamic mix of classic jazz standards, soul and funk all fused with hip-hop and world music.

Or plays in several bands in New Orleans, with his primary focus on his own group Or Shovaly Plus, a guitar-based jazz-funk band playing classic and soul jazz, funk and original tunes. The band's sound has been likened to The Meters and Soulive with influences from Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Ahmad Jamal, Charlie Parker and Avishai Cohen.

Or’s ultimate artistic goal was always to create an individual style of music, incorporating musical influences from his life journey, which include international music from his family ties to Israel, Yemen and Iran, African through his work with Kumasi Afro-beat and Jazz, the perfect idiom to facilitate his musical vision. 

Or Shovaly Plus released its first EP in 2022, Live at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, which includes Or's own personal arrangements to classic jazz standards, arranged with oriental and hip-hop motifs.  Influences on the EP include Live at the Pershing Hotel by Ahmad Jamal, A Love Supreme by John Coltrane and the music from the Israeli Bassist Avishai Cohen.

The ‘Plus’ in the band’s title references Sonny Rollins' Plus 4 and is intended to represent all the different projects, styles of music and musicians with whom Or has the opportunity to work. Or developed the band to be versatile, adapting the style and instruments to the venue's needs and playing a combination of classic jazz, Nola tunes and original tunes.  It  plays with a lot of groove and is versatile to  play as a trio or quartet (with a horn).

Or Shovaly Plus was featured three times in the 2022 NOLA x NOLA Festival and regularly plays at music venues in New Orleans, including at the House of Blues, Troubadour Hotel Ingenue Lounge, Chandelier Bar, Bar Marilou, Zony Mash, Capulet, Frenchmen Street and private events.

In addition Or leads the Afro-Beat band Kumasi’s string section, serving as the lead guitarist since 2014.  Kumasi plays regularly at all of the venues and festivals in New Orleans, including the House of Blues, Maison, Congo Square Fest, JazzFest and French Quarter Festival.   Kumasi was also featured in the 2022 Wausser Musik Festival in Berlin, Germany.

Described as ‘Modern’s Afrobeat best kept secret’  (Mystery Zone Records), Kumasi plays a combination of Fela Kuti tunes, afro-funk from 70s Ghana  and original music stemming from West African concepts.  

Or plays lead guitar on all of Kumasi’s albums, including Togetherness (2015) Akoben (2018) and Live at the Marigny Studios (2021). Kumasi has been nominated multiple times for Gambit’s Best of the Big Easy Award, winning the award for Best World/Latin music in both 2017 and 2019. 

Or holds a BA in Jazz Studies from the University of New Orleans (UNO) where he concentrated in jazz guitar performance and studied with Steve Masakowski, Brian Seeger, Davy Mooney and Hank Mackie (New Orleans). He has also privately studied with Peter Bernstein (New York) and Amos Hoffman (Israel).